The present disclosure relates to ranking of search results.
Internet search engines typically operate by storing information about many web pages, which they retrieve from the World Wide Web (WWW) using a Web crawler that follows hyperlinks on pages it encounters. The contents of each page are typically analyzed to determine how the page should be indexed (for example, words are extracted from the titles, headings, or special fields called meta tags). Data about web pages are stored in an index database for use in later queries. When a user enters a query into a search engine, the search engine examines its index and provides a listing of best-matching web pages according to its criteria, usually with a short summary containing the document's title and sometimes parts of the text. While there may be millions of web pages that include a particular word or phrase, some pages may be more relevant, popular, or authoritative than others. Most search engines employ techniques to rank the results to provide the “best” results first.